Don’t panic, Rehn is going nowhere

Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, thoughtfully announced on 21 August that he would not be a candidate in Finland’s presidential election.

He couched this great act of self-denial in terms of his duty to the EU: he was committed to the “ongoing work” to overcome the eurozone’s problems, a task which he perceptively described as “unfinished”.

However, the truth was that he was most unlikely to win the contest for the presidency. His Centre party is deeply unpopular and was forced out of government after the general election in April. Recent opinion polls put Rehn a distant third, far behind Sauli Niinistö, a former finance minister from the National Coalition Party (NCP) who is just short of the 50% needed to win the contest in the first round.

The election will take place on 22 January 2012, so Rehn’s withdrawal might be taken as some kind of vote of confidence in the euro – he thinks he might still have his Commission job next January.

Another non-candidate for a presidency is the ever ebullient Irish MEP Brian Crowley, who has – not for the first time – been rebuffed by his party leadership.

Crowley wanted to be his party’s candidate in the forthcoming election for the presidency. But the power-brokers in Fianna Fáil, still smarting from the party’s heavy defeat in the general election of 25 February, have decided they should not put up a candidate (to what they would regard as an inevitable defeat).

So Crowley must content himself with the more limited stage of the European Parliament.